"...the Irish language is not worth knowing..." the real and present danger!

Several things stirred me during the Christmas period. Two interviews with poets, an article in the Irish Times and a blog article from the prolific keyboard of journalist Concubhar Ó Liatháin.

Irish fiction?

The first was a television interview conducted by Morning Ireland's Cathal Mac Coille with the vetern poet and writer, still happily with us, Máire Mhac an tSaoi. This was a delightful hour or so where both writer and interviewer truly understood each other and where, as far as one could see there a genuine but not restrictive respect, affection and understanding between the interviewer and interviewee. Difficult questions were asked and answered and there were some beautiful moments where this over eighty year old poet recited some of her poems as part of the programme.

The second interview was one of the late Nobel Lauriate, Séamus Heaney by Olivia O'Leary. Again this was a wonderful piece of radio this time in front of an audience and again the interviewer showed her knowledge and respect for the poet. One of her questions however pulled me up short. She was asking if he ever felt drawn into the English "niceness" (I think was the word she used!). This is the way in which she felt that the English tried to "own one." She then said that when she was a broadcaster with the BBC long ago, she was very conscious of the possiblity of loosing her "Irishness" which she identified as her accent. That she always insisted in pronouncing the "R" in "Arthur Scargill" the Irish way.

It struck me as sad that this intelligent woman would not have had this problem in asserting her Irishness had she been in full possession of that most identifiable and unique attribute of Irishness, the language. She would perhaps never have feared this sublimation into Englishness and been like, say the brodcaster from Llanelli's Hew Edwards, a stalwart of BBC News. I cannot imagine this would have occured to Máire Mhac an tSaoi in all her international appointments or to her interviewer.

Irish fiction?

An article in this weekend's Irish Times was on a visit to the Dublin Writers' Museum by Rosita Boland. She mentons that it is twenty years since she last visited the museum. She was puzzeled by one of the display cases. "There is the same seemingly random pairing of featured writers in certain display cases. Samuel Beckett and Máirtín Ó Cadhain share one such space. At first, I think it’s because they were both born in 1906, as the text panels note, but the audio guide informs me it’s because they both “chose not to write in English”.

That immediately struck a chord as Concuubhar Ó Liatháin in his iGaeilge blog, recently commented on a new laureate (Irish), which includes a payment of €150,000, to be be awarded to "what the Arts Council describes as “an outstanding fiction writer”, writing in the English language." I must say his somwhat acerbic comment expresses a view with which I wholeheartedly agree! Should the Irish taxpayers' money be spent in promoting English language fiction or is it possible that Irish fiction and fiction in Irish are not the same?

In a recent (and unique) hour-long interview on Raidío na Life (Irish) our Taoiseach stated that he asked the English Queen Elizabeth II, during her historic visit to Ireland, what she thought the greatest gift England had given Ireland. She replied, "The English language." The Taoiseach agreed with her and indeed, incredulously, admitted this in the broadcast. One wonders if he ever read the address delivered by Douglas Hyde, later first President of Ireland, in 1893. (Arguably without this address he would not be Taoiseach at all!) "I have often heard people thank God that if the English gave us nothing else they gave us at least their language. In this way they put a bold face upon the matter, and pretend that the Irish language is not worth knowing, and has no literature. But the Irish language is worth knowing, or why would the greatest philologists of Germany, France, and Italy be emulously studying it, and it does possess a literature, or why would a German savant have made the calculation that the books written in Irish between the eleventh and seventeenth centuries, and still extant, would fill a thousand octavo volumes."

Maybe we could all do with reading his short address to realise that "in Anglicising ourselves wholesale we have thrown away with a light heart the best claim which we have upon the world's recognition of us as a separate nationality."

Indeed the words of the Coimisinéir Teanga to the Oireachtas Committee last December (2013) could well be regarded as an echo: "As we begin to regain our economic sovereignty, it would be a travesty if we were to lose our linguistic sovereignty – a cornerstone of our cultural identity, heritage and soul as a nation. I believe this to be a clear and present danger." (Translation)

The Necessity for De-Anglicising the Irish Nation

Has Douglas Hyde's lecture any revelance to today's Ireland?

Douglas Hyde
First President of Ireland

Hyde's famous lecture was first delivered before the Irish National Literary Society in Dublin, 25 November 1892, it inspired the foundation of Conradh na Gaeilge and revitalised interest in, and the importance of, our native culture.

The lecture sets out clearly the necessity for the complete renewal of Irish identity, language and culture.

A discussion session to address a modern assessment of Douglas Hyde's Lecture is scheduled for the Metropole Hotel, Seán McCurtain St., Cork, on 19th March 2013 at 7.30pm.

Entitled "A Modern Assessment of Douglas Hyde's Lecture," this discussion is to consider Hyde's analysis in the modern context and is the first in an effort to formulate new thinking in relation to the Irish language today, its importance and practical necessity for our future. Our intention is to gather ideas and create an network of interested people such that we can develop the thinking into a useful practical tool in the service of the people of Ireland.

Guth na Gaeltacht "The Gaeltacht voice is silenced!")

Has Foras na Gaeilge forgotten the words of the first president of Ireland?

Late on Friday last (1/2/2013) after Gaelscéal, the premier Irish language weekly, published the item discussed in our article, The Dictatorship of Fear, last week about the intimidation apparantly been experienced in the Irish Language sector, Foras na Gaeilge has abruptly withdrawn the subvention to the paper with apparantly no immediate plans to fill the lacuna left by this. 

R.I.P.

Inniú,

Amárach,

Anois,

Foinse,

Lá,

Lá Nua,

Gaelscéal

Moreover when Raidío na Gaeltachta made an effort to get a statement from the Organisation they were told that they would not have anybody available until the following Monday. The press statement although dated 28 January appeared on the Foras na Gaeilge site later - probably on the Monday. The release may be read here: End of Funding for Gaelscéal (pdf).

This non-professional, indeed, amateurish attitude bodes ill for any plans being made for the language from the State not to mention any residual confidence of the Irish speaking community and the Gaeltacht. 

The most glaring innaccuracies in this release is the figure given for average sales. I appears that the only looked at sales in the shops and did not take into consideration the not inconsiderable figures of sales to Schools, direct subscriptions or downloads of the electronic versions of the publication. These figures are closer to 4000 (3970 according to the publishers) rather more than the less that one and a half thousand copies quoted in the release. Moreover the board which made the decision were told that the publishing company, Torann na dTonn, were keen to terminate the agreement, which is strongly, if not indignantly, denied by the company.

Comparisons are odious we are told but I am going to make one. Our nearest neighbour, Wales, has a population of almost 450,000 fluent i their own language. The have one weekly newspaper which has a circulation of 4000. 

The alarming fact also is that this action leads (yet again) to the cessation of a publication, the dispersal of expertese - not to say perhaps personal hardship of those working in the enterprise - without providing the slightest inkling of what the next stage of their plan is. The final sentence  "...plans are being made to cater for this need in the near future.." hardly fill one with hopeful expectation.

Also the fact that this unilateral decision terminates an agreement mid-term is hardly encouraging for any organisation be they voluntary of commercial to conclude any agreement with Foras na Gaeilge. Are they to be trusted?

The decision has lead to some, well actually to quite a lot of discussion on various electronic media, notably twitter and Radío na Gaeltachta and later on TG4 programmes. One thing it lead to an exploration Foras na Gaeilge's own website - an exercise not for the faint-hearted! Among the jewels unearthed was a paper, a study, Irish Language Media Report (Irish), which although some rumblings as to its existence were heard nobody had apparently seen it. However it had been uploaded, unheralded, as indeed are many things, on the website we think in 2011.  It is hidden among "publications" alongside annual reports and other material. (In passing it is interesting that no annual report has been published by this inter-state body since 2009. A contrast between it and the meticulous and the bang up to date reports of the Comisinéir Teanga and Údarás na Gaeltachta is to say the least chastening. Both have published reports for years up to 2011.)

This report, paid for by the Foras by a Dr. Regina Uí Chollatáin (UCD) states unequivically that a printed newspaper in Irish is necessary until 2016. This sits rather oddly with the affirmation in the Foras release "..the printed format is not the most suitable to provide a news service to the Irish language readership." 

This table is of particular interest - excuse the translations, not always my strongest point!

Print & Internet trends

Year /Medium	2011	2016	2021	2026/7
Printed National Newspaper in Irish	Neccesary	Useful  & bi-lingual	Useful as support for online version	2027 - end of printed newspapers (Shane Hegarty Irish Times)
National Newspaper in Irish on-line	Useful as support of printed version	Neccesary	Neccesary	Neccesary
Printed Magazines	Neccesary	Neccesary	Useful as support for online version	Useful

The well known web publication Slugger O'Toole, the award winning news and opinion portal, which takes a critical look at various strands of political politics in Ireland and Britain, published a heartfelf Farewell to Gaelscéal, penned by Concubhar Ó Liatháin, nó stranger to the Machiavelian manouvers of Foras na Gaeilge as former Editor of the former Lá which is well worth a read.

A petition to the authorities who set up and appoint Foras na Gaeilge, viz the Governments of Ireland and Britain, has been set up. You may wish to support it: Reverse the decision of Foras na Gaeilge to close Gaelscéal. If you do sign you may like to ask your friends/followers to sign it to.

We have mentioned the sluggishness of Foras na Gaeilge in publishing annual reports. Perhaps a further insight into how Foras na Gaeilge operates, if that is not too strong a word to use, is contained in this release from Gaelport in late January 2013: Minutes of Foras na Gaeilge Board Meetings Published.

Is it not time, indeed, beyond time, that the Irish and British people, who have ownership of Foras na Gaeilge, sought an examination, a root and branch examination, of this organisation to see it it is in fact fit for purpose as "..the body responsible for the promotion of the Irish language throughout the whole island of Ireland!" Well was it said by Julian de Spáin, Secretary General of Conradh na Gaeilge, the oldest and perhaps most active of all the voluntary organisations, last Friday at a meeting in Galway, "I am angry that we have come to the point now where we are fighting not against the forces of English.... but againste the forces of Irish..." (My translation).

Perhaps Foras na Gaeilge has forgotten, if indeed it ever knew, the cry of the First President of Ireland, "When we speak of 'The Necessity for De-Anglicising the Irish Nation', we mean it, not as a protest against imitating what is best in the English people, for that would be absurd, but rather to show the folly of neglecting what is Irish, and hastening to adopt, pell-mell, and indiscriminately, everything that is English, simply because it is English." (Douglas Hyde, 25/11/1892).

Perhaps the Government of Ireland and our Minister for the Gaeltacht has forgotten it too.

Éist linn, Ruairí Quinn! A deaf and misunderstanding minister?

The clouded vision of an Education Minister?

In a recent edition of Gaelscéal, the Irish newspaper, our attention was drawn to a piece written by the Irish Minister for Education, Ruairí Quinn. The Statement was in the Irish Times, "Laying radical foundations for the primary school system" (IT 25/10/2011) .

"This month, we celebrate the 180th anniversary of sustained quality education in the national school system which has served this country so well."

These are the National Schools which Edmund Ignatius Rice was so doubtful about when they were instituted in the 1830s and indeed the various Churches also had problems with the philosophy under which they were established. Indeed they were not universally accepted until well into the 1860s. That they were successful depends on what the observer thinks they were established to do. Obviously the current minister has his own ideas.

Reading for a Minister

President 1937-1945

Provisional President 1916

Historian 

I wonder if he has ever read the little pamphlet written some 50 years after the establishment of these schools by the first President of the current Republic? "The Necessity for De-Anglicising Ireland!"(INLS 25/11/1892).
"It has always been very curious to me how Irish sentiment sticks in this half-way house -- how it continues to apparently hate the English, and at the same time continues to imitate them; how it continues to clamour for recognition as a distinct nationality, and at the same time throws away with both hands what would make it so." he says!

Or has he read The Murder Machine (1/1/1916) from the pen of the President of the Provisional Government of Ireland, who decried the education system "..an education system which more wickedly does violence to the elementary human rights of Irish children..."

In our own day a comprehensive demographic study of the, by now peripheral, Irish speaking areas, demonstrated the "effectiveness" of the schools in those areas in fostering the use of English and the rapid decline of the use of Irish among the youth in those areas. (Report Summary in English may be found here!). A comprehensive analysis, district by district has been compiled by Donncha Ó hÉalaithe in Irish  (TG4 & Foinse 23/3/2010).

This decline of standards in Irish teaching in schools is hardly surprising when we realise that the Department is staffed by personnel of which only 1.5% (One point five percent) are capable of transacting any business in the national language of Ireland. (Report Coimisinéir Teanga pdf July 2011)

From 1366 the English had attempted to eliminate Irish. By the end of the eighteenth century it is estimated that in a population of approx 5 million people 3.5 million could speak Irish and less than half of those could speak both Irish and English.Certainly there were more speaking Irish then than there were say Danes speaking Danish at that time - approx 2 million at most. By the end of the nineteenth century the number of people who spoke Irish had had a cataclismic fall to 600,000.

This decline appears to have little benificial effect on the Irish economy. To quote the eminent historian Professor Joe Lee in his monumental study of Ireland in the 20th century. He speaks of dairy exports to Britain, "(in 1870) ...Denmark began to enter the dairying industry seriously.....The Danish performance easily eclipsed the Irish one. There were many reasons for this...abandoning their obscure language in favour of English was not one of them.." (Ireland 1912-1985 Page 663)  On the previouis page he states "...it is hardly going too far tio say that but for the loss of the language, there would be little discussion about identity in the republic. With language little else seems tio be required" Indeed all of us, not least a Government Minister would benefit from reading this particular chapter of Professor Lee's book.

Does a Minister for Education who has refused to say whether there is a right here to be educated in the National Language understand or even know the implications of his actions in this regard? Or, as the editorial of Gaelscéal asks, "Has he much more in accordance with the founders of the national schools than has been indicated by him so far?"